The fatal shooting of two men outside a Cambodian New Year celebration in Aurora more than two years ago prompted a federal crackdown on a major Ecstasy drug ring and resulted in the arrests of 23 people.

Members of the Asian Pride gang are suspected of trafficking about 10,000 tablets of Ecstasy per week at a price of $20 per tablet throughout metro Denver, said Troy Eid, the U.S. attorney in Colorado.

A federal grand jury handed up a 109-count indictment charging 27 suspected members and associates of the Asian Pride gang with conspiracy, possession with intent to distribute and distribution of Ecstasy.

FBI agents and members of the Metro Gang Task Force arrested 23 without incident in Thornton, Westminster, Denver, Littleton, Aurora and Colorado Springs. The indictments and arrests were announced Wednesday.

Agents also found drugs, money and weapons during the arrests.

The federal and local task force began investigating the gang after Quoc Phan, 28, of Thornton and 22-year-old Christopher Le of Westminster, described as Asian Pride gang members, were shot to death. The homicides occurred in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn near Interstate 70 and Chambers Road on April 15, 2006.

Eid described the Asian Pride gang as “very dangerous and very secretive” and he said that gaining information on the gang is tough because they are “tightly knit” and there are language barriers that investigators had to overcome.

Ecstasy is a stimulant in tablet form that is mainly marketed to high school and college students, Eid said, and is more harmful than it appears on the surface.

Some of the tablets have the cartoon characters Tweety Bird and Pokemon’s Pikachu printed on them, which contributes to the misconception of the danger.

“Even occasional use can cause permanent brain damage,” Eid said. “Users often have no idea what they are getting.”

Ecstasy can be mixed with methamphetamine to increase profits, he said.

Authorities declined to say where the drugs were being sold or whether they were trafficked into the United States. They would only say that the Ecstasy came into Colorado from California.

Nobody has been charged in the double-homicide case, said Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates, and authorities declined to say whether they suspected that anyone named in the indictment was involved in the killings.

If the defendants are found guilty, they each face up to 40 years in federal prison and $2 million in fines.

Spain came under repeated attack starting Thursday in what authorities called linked terrorist incidents, when a driver swerved a van into crowds in Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas district, killing more than a dozen people and injuring scores of others. Early Friday, an attempted attack unfolded in a town down the coast

If there’s one superhero character whose rise might be most tied to the events of World War II, it is Captain America, who emerged from the minds of legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and sprung forth from an iconic 1941 debut cover on which Cap smacks Hitler right in the kisser.

A customer dining at Washington’s Oceanaire restaurant noticed an unusual line at the bottom of his receipt: “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill.”